Photo of Mark Reuss, talking today in LA (behind him is the ZL1 which accomplished this Nurburgring lap time):

Here's a summary of what GM North America president Mark Reuss said about the ZL1 at today's meeting in LA:

Quote:

Mark Reuss, president of General Motors North America flew from sunny and warm Detroit to rainy and chilly Los Angeles to address media members on Wednesday. Once he arrived, the climate change was evident in the room close to Los Angeles International Airport; this man's enthusiasm for automobiles, motorsports and General Motors is evident by his demeanor and excitement for the future.

The first item Reuss addressed was the vehicle on display outside the hotel where the meeting was held - Chevrolet's Camaro ZL1. The street and circuit-worthy Camaro wasn't terribly pretty but it looked, at first glance, that it was worthy of great performance.

Reuss stated as much - from personal experience - as he was one of the drivers to conduct performance validation on this machine on the famed Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit of 14.173 miles in Germany, where the LSR-powered V8 muscle car turned an incredible 7 minutes, 41.27 seconds in a single lap, he said. Can anyone remember a GM president that was enough of an enthusiast to take part in a session of this type? Didn't think so.

The ZL1 was "forgiving and neutral," Reuss, a Grand-Am-licensed competitor said. "I was able to drive deeper than I ever have." He especially enjoyed passing the Porsche GT3's that were lapping concurrently, before the car was boxed and returned from Germany to the GM proving grounds and then brought to Los Angeles for this morning appearance. The street car will have its debut during the mid-November Los Angeles International Auto Show.

Wow! That is much faster than I had anticipated when comparing it to the CTS-V's lap time (my guess was orginally about a 7:55, but after hearing the latest news and watching the track vids I had guessed around a 7:51). I guess the much fatter and better rubber and all the track goodies really made a huge difference. Aero must have had a big part to play as well.

Still, 18 seconds faster than the V, that is craziness!!! I love it!!!

Is this even possible? Faster than a Z06 and ZR1, not to mention the other cars it eclipses? Seriously? I'm almost having a hard time believing this is true.

The latest Z06 and ZR1 Nurburgring times are 7:22.68 and 7:19.63, respectively. Still 7:41.27 for the ZL1 is quite impressive. It's 11 seconds faster than I was expecting.

Of course, the possible downside of all of this, the videos showing all of the technology that the ZL1 has, and the excellent performance numbers that are starting to be released, could be is that Chevrolet is preparing us for a MSRP for the ZL1 that is higher than we'd like it to be.